[2] He won a gold medal in the men's 62 kg division at the 2002 World Weightlifting Championships in Warsaw, Poland, with a total of 315.0 kilograms.

[3] He also captured two silver medals at the Asian Games (2002 in Busan, South Korea, and 2006 in Doha, Qatar).

Eight years after competing in his first Olympics, Im qualified for the third time in the men's featherweight category (62 kg), as a 28-year-old, at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, by placing second from the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

[5] Im, however, did not finish the event, as he successfully lifted 138 kg in the single-motion snatch, but failed to hoist 168 kg in the two-part, shoulder-to-overhead clean and jerk.

[6] This biographical article relating to weightlifting in North Korea is a stub.